Cyprus 2025: Theo Evan with ‘Shh’
The first announced name of the year in Theo Evan finally dropped his song last week and whether he wants us to or not, it’s time to talk about Shh:
I really want to pull apart the lyrics on this which are absolute nonsense. Why is Theo claiming to have golden locks? Is this a song sung from someone else's perspective? If that's the case throw a "who am I?" in there instead of two "who would minds?". I'm so confused and we are two lines in. The love metaphors/shh/I'm slaying themes don't really come together. There’s nonsense around everywhere this year as always but this is the one that has bothered me so far the most. Not enough for me to look into “the meaning” either, but there you go.
The production on this is far better and one of the strengths of the song. There are some really cool moments in there and this does overall have a better hook than immediate rivals Belgium. Between this, Strobe Lights, and Kyle Alessandro's presence we could frankenstein together a very good entry but this semi one trio are all flawed in their own ways.
Theo Evan is also an area of concern. He's a little overconfident and that could be his down... Oh. Well he saw my dumbass coming. But seriously, the vocal likely needs some heavy assistance and I've not really sensed much charisma from him at any stage this season. I don't know what sort of thought process Cyprus have had this year, whether there is great confidence in him, or they've retroactively brought in all these big guns on songwriting, staging and choreography after the point. It's a weird mix of laziness and misguided all-out effort.
Overall, Cyprus are fortunate to be in the second half of semi 1 but they are seperated from Greece and do have that previously mentioned competition from Belgium and Norway with Azerbaijan and Croatia kind of in the same lane too but looking much less relevant. Personally, this might be the most complete package of the bunch but it can't be considered entirely safe. Perhaps it's 80% of the way there and somewhere from 6th-11th likely depending on staging and who is prioritised in the draw.
In the final I don't think this will stand out much and the juries are probably not going to help a great deal unless there's a serious staging from flavour of the year Sergio Jaen and maybe a better than expected performance from Theo.
Personal Rating: 15/20
Staging Potential: 15/20
Televote Potential: 11/20
Jury Potential: 7/20
Track Record: 10/20
Total Rating: 58/100
Early Prediction: Semi One 7th-11th, 19th-23rd if in the final.